City livelihood centres to be set up to help urban poor, SHGs

In a bid to generate employment opportunities and uplift the livelihood of the underprivileged people in the urban parts, the state government has decided to set up city livelihood centres (CLC) or Nagar Jibika Kendra.

With the setting up of the CLCs, members of self help groups (SHGs) will get information that will help them in marketing their products in a better way and as a result increase the chances of getting better prices for their products.

At the same time, unemployed youths in different districts can visit the CLCs in their respective areas to get job related information.

In the first phase, 28 such centres will come up at different places including Asansol in Burdwan; Krishnanagar, Nawadip and Kalyani in Nadia; Madhayamgram, Naihati, Barrackpore, Bongaon, Barasat, Basirhat, Kamarhati and Bhatpara in North 24 Parganas; Chinsurah, Uttarpara and Serampore in Hooghly; Haldia and Tamralipta in East Midnapore; Alipurduar; Englishbazar in Malda; Bankura and Uluberia in Howrah; Behrampore in Murshidabad; Kharagpur in West Midnapore; Purulia; and Jalpaiguri.

The centres will come up under the West Bengal State Urban Livelihood Mission and will be inaugurate on August 15.

It may be mentioned that the decision to set up the CLCs was taken after it was assessed that poor families in the urban areas, who have formed SHGs, were facing trouble in marketing their products due to lack of information on market trends and demands.

In a bid to help them get correct information about the appropriate markets for a particular product and to help them increase their margin of profit, the idea of formation of the CLCs was floated.

The SHGs can also get information on credit linkage under various schemes and loan support.

At the same time setting up of the CLCs will be helpful for the youth from urban areas, as they will get all sorts of employment-related information from these centres. They will also get information on skill training programmes and self-employment.

Common people from the urban areas can visit the centres to get skilled persons to carry out works like carpentry, gardening, construction, plumbing, electrical work, health care support, housekeeping and even security work. Hence, skilled persons who will visit the CLCs can be benefited by getting information about such job opportunities. Each of the CLCs will be allocated a fund of Rs 10 lakh to run the centre.